Kind of interesting, kind of frustrating simultaneously. I like the idea of the Doctor forcing two parties to the negotiating table, but Moffat’s been rolling that chestnut out since Matt Smith’s first season, with the Silurian story. Did it a couple of years ago with the Zygons, which was a follow-up to when he did that with the Zygons in the 50th anniversary special. (I’m aware the episode wasn’t written by Moffat, but we know that Moffat either dictates story points or reshapes them afterward.)

When the Doctor reset the entire robot network, did he also reprogram it so that it wouldn’t do what it did before? If not, what was the point? Aren’t the newly awakened colonists doomed in that scenario?

This episode had a really striking look to it, I’ll give it that much. The emoji ‘bots were cute and a little menacing. I was disappointed that, at no point when one of them was attacked/dismantled/shut down…one of them should’ve shown the poop emoji for just a split second. “Oh sh…!”

For some reason the Happiness Patrol (1988) was in the back of my mind this whole time, like there should have been something trying the two stories together.